


Crow on the Cradle

by grumkin_snark



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 16:05:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17025783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grumkin_snark/pseuds/grumkin_snark
Summary: Starfall was founded in grief, sweetling. It seems the gods have not yet had their fill.





	Crow on the Cradle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SecondStarOnTheLeft](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/gifts).



> For Niamh in the @gotsecretsanta exchange. Happy holidays, and I hope you enjoy!!

**i.**

He is five. He is five and safe at Starfall, and  _excited_. A couple of months ago, Mother had sat him down with a smile that seemed as dazzling as a moonlit sea.

“You’re going to have a brother or sister,” she’d beamed. She’d placed his hand on her stomach, which hadn’t looked any different at the time. “There’s a little person growing inside Mama’s belly. You can’t feel anything yet, but soon the baby will be kicking. Isn’t that grand, my darling?”

He doesn’t exactly understand how there can be a  _person_  inside Mother, but he likes the idea of a sibling, and in the past he has thought long and hard about all the games he could play with one. There are other children he has fun with, highborn and lowborn alike, but they all call him “my lord” sooner or later, and he thinks it’d be wondrous to have someone who would treat him not as Edric Dayne the heir to Starfall, but as himself, as Ned. Just Ned.

The more weeks that pass, the more he takes to wondering what his sibling might look like—would they look like him, with Mother’s blonde hair and Father’s bluish-purple eyes, or would they look more like one than the other?—and one day he has it in his mind to discuss the subject with Mother. She always has an answer for him, so he’s certain she’d have one for this, too.

Only, as he passes her bedroom, all thoughts fly out of his head. She’s curled up on her bed facing the window, shaking as though she’s caught a chill, as Nana rubs her back murmuring things he can’t hear. He watches a moment more, then dashes away. He’s never seen Mother sad before, and it frightens him.

Later, Nana comes to his room, sits beside him, and hoists him onto her lap. She looks grim, as grim as the black scarf wrapped around her head. Usually she chooses vibrant colors for her silk scarves that she uses at night to protect the tight coils of her hair, but not tonight. He doesn’t like it.

“Do you remember the news your ma told you two moons past?” she asks him.

“Yes, I’ve made up games!” Edric exclaims, temporarily forgetting his troubles. “I will be the best big brother, I  _promise_.”

“Oh, my little bee,” Nana sighs. “She lost the baby.”

“She  _lost_  the baby? Where did it go?”

“To the heavens,” Nana replies. “Your ma is sad because she loved the baby so much already. She will be sad for a while yet. This has happened before, when you were too young to remember, and in the years before you were born. It doesn’t get easier.”

“Why does that keep happening? Did Mother misbehave? When I misbehave, Nurse Wylla tells me I have to say I’m sorry.”

“No, she did not misbehave,” says Nana. “Sometimes these things just happen. No one knows why. But we need to be extra,  _extra_  kind to your ma right now. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, Nana.”

“Good boy.” She pauses, then kisses his forehead. “Starfall was founded in grief, sweetling. It seems the gods have not yet had their fill.”

* * *

**ii.**

He is seven. He is seven and safe in the Water Gardens, as he has been for many moons now. He’s been here ever since Mother had lost another baby, even earlier than the last, and declared she wanted to stay with her family in Skyreach for a while; Aunt Allyria became incredibly wroth with Father about something; and Father was writing a lot of letters.

Father had told him most highborn Dornish children visit the Martells, that it was past time he did, too, but he doesn’t know if he fully believes that. Not with all of the adults having been so unhappy, but he knows none of them would have told him the real reason if he’d asked, so he’d done as Father said without complaint.

Prince Trystane is a good listener. While he doesn’t have any more solutions or answers than Edric does, he listens and sympathizes. And he  _can_  sympathize, Edric finds out—Trys’s mother had left as well, though Trys says he thinks it’s permanent, where Mother had said she’d return eventually.

He’s only met Prince Quentyn once, when the youth visited from Yronwood, and Princess Arianne is pleasant enough, but she spends most of her time with Daemon Sand. They’re related, he and Daemon, through Nana’s sister; Edric wonders if one day he’ll be as fine a swordsman as Daemon, or if he’s destined to be like his father, skilled with a pen but not a blade.

He doesn’t get the chance to find out—in the Water Gardens, at least—for within a fortnight later, Prince Doran receives a letter from Father informing him that he is to serve as a page for Lord Dondarrion, who has been formally betrothed to Aunt. It is a miserable day when he has to bid goodbye to Trys, made all the more miserable by the prospect of living in the Marches where he won’t have a single Dornishman to talk to.

* * *

**iii.**

He is twelve. He is twelve and traveling through the riverlands, waking up each day unsure if he’ll live to see another. The harrowing nature of this ongoing ordeal and the inability to completely process the fact that he’s watched Lord Beric die many times over and be resurrected just as many times means the loneliness is usually easy to ignore. If he concentrates on his duties as a squire, he can push aside most of the bad parts.

But sometimes, in rare moments of respite or levity, it stands out like a burr in his boot. He is on good terms with most of the Brotherhood, Anguy especially, but in the end it’s hard to call them  _friends_ , in truth. They’re all older than him by many years, and when they begin speaking of brothels and taverns and make bawdy jokes, the divide is all the clearer.

He can share in none of their joviality, because he does not share their experiences. He’s never so much as kissed a maiden, certainly nothing beyond that, he’s never had more than a flagon of ale, and he doesn’t understand their euphemisms. Sometimes Anguy or Thoros will notice his discomfort and make an effort to include him, but it’s not the same.

The pervading feeling of not belonging seeps into his very bones as sure as any rainstorm. Occasionally he’ll seek out Lord Beric, who spends most of his time alone in thought, purely for the silence of it all.  But that, too, comes at a price: being around the dead-but-not-dead lord means he risks confronting all the bloodshed and horrors he’s witnessed in this war, which is the last thing he wants to do.

And so it is an uncommonly bright spot, sunlight shining through clouds, when Anguy, Lem, and the others bring with them two newcomers, both of them much nearer his age. The blacksmith’s apprentice is perhaps less of a joy since he’s perpetually grumpy, but the girl catches his eye and he ponders for days how he might approach her. Though she is but ten to his twelve, he’s overheard her sharp tongue and distrustfulness, and doesn’t want to start off on the wrong foot.

Which, of course, he does. When he finds out who she really is, the fact that they’re  _connected_ , in a way, means all his planning is for naught. Without thinking he mentions her half-brother, which leads to Aunt, which leads to Aunt’s  _stories_ , and even as he’s reciting them there’s a voice in his head screaming to stop because of the look on her face.

Before he knows it, she’s furious and distressed—he didn’t  _mean_  to imply her parents weren’t in love, really he didn’t, and hadn’t she asked who broke Aunt Ashara’s heart? Was he wrong to tell her what Aunt said?—and she bolts away on her horse. He tries his very best to apologize and smooth things over, but she’s too quick and his head is pounding with headache too hard to follow her in time—and then she’s gone.

The apprentice stays, but Edric would rather he didn’t. Gendry grows more thorny than he used to be, blaming Edric for Arya’s abrupt departure, as if that’s what Edric  _wanted_ , as if anything short of a dragon could stop her from doing as she pleased. Despite that, Gendry is only three years his senior, so he tries anyway to forge a friendship, until his attempts are rebuked often enough that finally he gives up.

Not that it matters much longer. Lord Beric dies for good, more than half the Brotherhood turns to the Red God, Lady Catelyn’s living corpse is pulled from the river with her irreverent quest for vengeance, and it’s all so horribly  _unfair_. A part of him finds a sick irony in his hatred that Lady Catelyn—no, Lady  _Stoneheart_ —had been reanimated, yet he himself had pulled Lord Beric’s corpse from the river once and hadn’t protested to Thoros reanimating  _him_.

His only comfort is what Nana had said so many years ago:

_Starfall was founded in grief, sweetling. The gods have not yet had their fill._

It’s reassuring, in a bleak sort of way. It’s reassuring that he is merely the latest in a long line of Daynes who have suffered for no other reason than happenstance. He is not at fault; it’s just his misfortune to have been born into a house as cursed as it is ancient.

After all, most of the First Men who had set out for the western coast of Dorne had perished of thirst or heatstroke while crossing the vast deserts. The gods  _still_  had not pitied them: no one had been able to forge Dawn from the fallen star until one of the ancestral Daynes had risked his life—indeed, had lost it—to save another. Only then had the star burned white and permitted itself to be molded into a sword.

He does not want to go home. It feels like failure. Isn’t a squire’s only job to help his knight? He should have stopped Lord Beric, or at least tried harder to prevent the remainder of the Brotherhood from naming Lady Stoneheart their leader, but he hadn’t. Anguy attempts to make him feel better about it, tells him he was in shock, that he was too young.

All are excuses. How is he supposed to look his family in the eye after this?

(How is he supposed to look Aunt in the eye and inform her that her betrothed had died to bring a Stark back to life, when her brother had been killed by one? Aunt had been wholly against being promised to a Marcher, but somehow Edric doubts that will make much of a difference.)

Truth be, one of the reasons he could not bring himself to follow Lady Stoneheart was simple fear and self-preservation. Not fear of her appearance, though that was plenty horrifying, but fear of what she might do to him. Was it not he who was the cause of her daughter escaping, which led to her abduction?

He’d seen firsthand that Lady Stoneheart gave no quarter to those she perceived had wronged her, never mind whether they had wronged her enough to warrant being murdered. It would be only a matter of time before she turned her wrath on him, and regardless of what he’s seen, regardless of how wretched things are, he doesn’t want to die.

But he doesn’t want to go home either.

To his lament, Anguy says that he’d be killed or captured within a week if he set off by himself, and that Starfall would be the safest bet for them both. From there, they could decide what to do.

The archer makes good points, but they only make him feel worse.

* * *

**iv.**

He is thirteen. He is thirteen, almost fourteen, and staring up at the Wall. His joints ache from growing several inches in a matter of months, which is exacerbated tenfold by the relentless, biting cold. The sword strapped to his back is too big, and the knighthood Anguy had bestowed upon him so he could carry said sword— _“Any knight can make a knight,”_  the archer had proclaimed—feels like a farce.

No one had wanted to give him the historic blade yet—he more than anyone hadn’t felt deserving of or ready for it—but the ravens had flown with news that the Others not only existed but were vulnerable only to fire, dragonglass, and Valyrian steel, and he is the sole male Dayne left.

(They spare only a passing thought for his distant cousin. Quite apart from the matter of being unworthy, none of them can take seriously someone who names themselves  _Darkstar_.)

Dawn isn’t Valyrian steel, but possesses all the same properties, so it had been determined that the same should hold true for the ability to kill the Others. Mother had begged him not to go, had told him she couldn’t endure losing her only child, but Aunt had pressed Dawn into his hands, recited the ancient words in the harsh tones of the Old Tongue as is required to entitle a Sword of the Morning, and that was that.

Anguy has been beside him the whole time, not exempt from trepidation yet steadfastly determined. He is armed with a new bow made of the finest Dornish yew, plus a complement of arrows and a dirk on his belt that by his own admission he hopes he doesn’t have to use.

Edric has had to invent more and more creative hiding places since they’ve arrived, however, for there seems to be a never-ending stream of people who want to inspect and hold Dawn, almost all of whom express disbelief or outright contempt that he, a boy years away from being a man grown, is the one to wield it.

As if Edric doesn’t think the same. As if there aren’t bigger things to worry about at the moment. As if there aren’t three  _dragons_  resting half a mile away and an undead Lord Commander giving orders.

Those that do not deride him make crude jokes at his expense. All the while, he can’t help but wonder if his uncle had had to deal with the same, and if so, how long it had taken for the jokes to stop, how many men he had had to kill to earn respect instead of japes.

The only good thing about it is that it keeps him irritated, and if he’s irritated then he can’t be bloody  _petrified_.

On the eve of battle, Anguy uncharacteristically quiet as he checks and double-checks the twine that binds obsidian arrowheads to their shafts, once more Nana’s words come to him.

 _Have the gods had their fill of grief yet?_  he wonders.  _Will they take me, too, until Aunt is all that’s left?_

* * *

**v.**

He is fourteen. He is fourteen, almost fifteen, and knows what the ceiling of Winterfell’s sickroom looks like almost as well as he does the ceiling of his chambers in Starfall.

One year he has spent here, recovering from the wounds he’d taken, and the maester called Sam—well, not quite a maester, but near enough—had told him it was a damned miracle he’d survived at all. He supposes that must be true, though he doesn’t remember much of the fight that had shattered his shoulder, taken half his hearing, and afflicted him with debilitating headaches.

Sam seems to think some of that will fade in time, but Edric has his doubts. He hasn’t forgotten what his father was like after the Rebellion, how his legs had never mended and his temperament turned bitter as nightshade.

Yet for all that, even if his time wielding Dawn has already come and gone, he is  _alive_ , whereas countless men, the mighty dragons, and their riders had fallen, bringing the Others down with them.

And it has not been so bad here, even in the beginning when Anguy was unconscious more than not—he, too, had survived, a discovery that had caused Edric visceral relief—and Edric himself was under a regimen of milk of the poppy. He remembers one evening early on when he roused in the dead of night and nearly had the life startled out of him when he caught sight of someone staring at him from the end of his bed.

“I’m glad you’re all right, Ned,” was all Arya had said before disappearing. He’d considered it a victory, of sorts, given how poorly their last conversation had gone.

( _“Dornishmen lie, don’t they?”_  He still remembers overhearing that. The ease with which she’d said it, she of all people, had put him in a dark mood for longer than he cares to admit. Like as not it had been a result of her hurt, not malice, but it had stung nonetheless.)

She had returned a fortnight later, this time in the daylight, but seemed unable to say anything. The intermittent coughing and moaning of some of the other wounded in the room punctuated the silence.

“You look well,” Edric had said finally. “You were not injured?”

“Not as bad as you,” she’d said, biting her lip. “I told you once, I could beat you with a sword.”

That had brought a weary smile to his face. “I remember. But I don’t think this battle counts. We didn’t duel.”

“When you get better then.”

“I’ll be returning to Dorne as soon as I can travel. So you’ll have to visit Starfall, it’s only fair.”

“I can beat you anywhere,” Arya had said haughtily.

“If you say so.”

“I  _do_  say so.”

She’d come more regularly after that, particularly once Anguy had begun his own recovery. Her siblings had come by once or twice as well, Sansa the Lady Regent with her youngest brother clinging to her skirts and Lord Brandon in his wheeled chair. But it was Arya’s company he’d looked forward to most; only she had traveled with him and the Brotherhood, after all. And only she had seen the shade that was Lady Stoneheart and had given her the mercy of death.

In spite of the meetings, however, Winterfell outgrows its welcome for him, and the day Sam informs him that he can go home is a blessed day indeed.

The leaders of Winterfell are easy to find. They are holed up in the lord’s solar, Lord Brandon and Lady Sansa deep in conversation about the goings-on as they do for hours every morning. They both bid him safe travels and ensure that he, Anguy, and a few of the remaining Dornish stragglers are well-provisioned for the trip home.

He meets Arya in the armory as he goes to retrieve his sword, and she hands it to him. “Well...I’ll see you.”

“In Dorne,” Edric reminds her.

“Yes,  _fine_ , in Dorne.”

“Good. Farewell, my lady.”

She punches him in his uninjured arm with a scowl that makes him laugh. “Don’t  _call_  me that.”

* * *

**vi.**

He is nineteen. He is nineteen and safe at Starfall. Mother has an easy smile more days than not, Aunt has refused to wed but has taken a paramour, Nana serves as an invaluable adviser, and he has a drawer full of letters bearing messy handwriting and the Stark seal, the latest of which contains an invitation to a wedding in Highgarden and a promise to finally visit.

He is nineteen, and it is spring.


End file.
